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Comment by nunley | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to defend Kevin here because I see a lot of comments from people I am sure have no valid reason to be hating on him.

Kevin was particularly annoying because he never failed to penetrate a target. The reason that's annoying is it just takes one slip, one weak point, one inattentive admin and it's over. People will stay mad about that. I get it.

But those who say he had no talent are just ignorant.

His goal was to make the world safer, and making people pay attention to risk didn't make him a lot of friends. All the hate I am reading here is just sad.

If you hate Kevin and did not know Kevin, I feel bad for you. Hate is an expensive emotion, even when you're just being a keyboard warrior. It should be reserved for people who have really wronged you. Kevin is not with us anymore. The hate is hurting you, not him. And he has a son who will read this someday. Have a heart.

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I would petition all other community members to appreciate the gravity of the parent's comment.

Speaking for myself as someone very early in my journey during the time when Mitnick was still active as a grey hat: he advanced our thinking about security and the nature of trust itself in ways that have never been more timely.

Paradoxically he profited personally far more as a white hat than he ever did in the grey area, his motivations were clearly not extractive. The authorities compelled him to go do lucrative things! (after persecuting him mercilessly).

RIP Kevin. We are ill equipped for the vulns of the AI, but without you we'd be helpless.

In case folk don't connect the dots, this appears to be Shawn Nunley from the article.

Yeah, I am shocked a little, because he wasn't a monster or something. Critique is valid, but speaking with obvious resentment and disrespect about someone who died is pretty gross. Again, unless they're, like, a _monster_.

If you're a high profile public figure, you are subject to scrutiny. Even after you pass away.

I'm not talking about scrutiny. I'm talking about crass.

This story is itself evidence that Kevin had good parts to him. This 911 GTS is not some shit joke prize.

Shawn and I worked together at Novell back when this was going down. It was fascinating at the time and more so in hindsight. FWIW, Shawn's a really good guy.

I can echo that sentiment. Shawn is a friend and a genuinely nice and interesting person.

Been a crazy ride, Bill!

> I am sure have no valid reason to be hating on him.

TBF that's likely a symptom of social media and people commenting on things they don't know about with a bit too much confidence. You can see similar takes on snowden today.

Back in the day (90s, 00s) he was both widely supported and a bit of a myth in the early Internet communities.

>But those who say he had no talent are just ignorant.

I don't think anyone says he had no talent, what rubs people the wrong way is that the thing he had talent for is the same thing that the people have who try to scam call your grandmother out of her pension money. You can be the world's greatest burglar, you're still a burglar. The whole cringy "social engineering" thing turned media persona and consulting business is to engineering what chiropractics is to medicine.

He leaned pretty heavily into monetizing his own image and for a lot of people what he did became synonymous with the word 'hacking' in a not particularly positive way and critising that isn't hate.

That's just nonsense. First of all, social engineering was a small part of his work, and it's OK that you don't know that. But your totally blatant ignorance of what his career covered is exactly what I'm talking about.

Look, I know that people form their opinions in a bubble. All I am saying here is you should expand your bubble. You know nothing about Kev. Again, that's OK, but it also means you should try to understand what you're hating.

You'd try to make money on your image if you could, I'm betting. Especially if you had been put in prison and left there with no bail hearing, and put in solitary confinement for 'hoarding tuna' in your cell. For 9 months. While your father died. This was not a normal treatment of any person in custody.

Kev was a good person. Full stop. Just as curious as all of us in that era.

His (or other peoples) treatment in the US prison system is another matter and often cruel, but no he didn't conduct himself like a good person in regards to his 'hacking'. He committed wire fraud, he impersonated people, he exfiltrated sensitive credit card information from thousands of people.

That's not just curious, that's not something we all did when we were young, those were legitimate crimes and they still are for good reason. He had a big part in popularizing the image that a hacker, rather than someone who writes software for the public good, is someone who tricks other people and steals personal data.

And no I wouldn't be proud if I ran phishing scams and stole IP from random companies, I wouldn't monetize that, I'd say I'm sorry which from reading his books at least I don't think he ever was.

> social engineering was a small part of his work, and it's OK that you don't know that... totally blatant ignorance... Kev was a good person. Full stop.

I understand you're defending your friend, but that's a little uncalled for. Personally, my first real knowledge of him was from his 2002 book The Art Of Deception, which is specifically a book about social engineering. That is how he himself chose to present himself - as a successful social engineer - so you can't criticise others for that.

There's good and bad in all of us. I don't think the person you responded to said Kevin was all bad, and made it clear it isn't hate.

I apologize for going off. I just get triggered when people make such assumptions. He did not see Kev working on extremely technical achievements, I am sure. I did. To say he was mostly a social engineer is just incorrect, and I overreacted. The fact that he wrote a book on it is fair, but I know a lot about beer brewing and could probably write a book on it, but it's just one thing I know.

I'm old enough to remember Kevin as both hero and villain. People are complex, Kevin seemed to be no exception. His exploits - and the ones of those who caught him - were fascinating to follow in realtime.

But be honest...

How sweet is that 911?

I'm going with 'pretty sweet'

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